Friday, 20 December 2013

Angel Face

By Uri Avnery Published
by Haaretz 21 Dec. 2013

SEEING
HER face on the TV screen, one is struck by her beauty. It is the face of an
angel, pure and innocent. Then she opens her mouth, and what pours out is vile
and ugly, the racist message of the extreme right. Like seeing a cherub parting
its lips and revealing the teeth of a vampire.

Ayelet
Shaked may be the beauty queen of the present Knesset. But she is the
instigator of some of the most outrageous right-wing initiatives in this
Knesset. Her latest exploit is a bill which is now being debated in the
Knesset, which would levy a huge tax on donations given by foreign “political
entities” to Israeli human rights associations, those who advocate a boycott of
Israel (or of the settlements only), the indictment of Israeli officers accused
of war crimes in international courts, and more. All this while immense sums are
flowing from abroad to the settlements and their supporters. Much of it comes
from American Jewish billionaires of dubious repute.

This is
the face of an international phenomenon. All over Europe, extreme fascistic
parties are flourishing. Small despised fringe groups suddenly expand into
large parties with a national impact. From Holland to Greece, from France to
Russia, these parties propagate a mixture of super-nationalism, racism,
xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and immigrant-hatred. A deadly witches’
brew.

The
explanation? All over the place, the economic crisis has hit the people hard.
Unemployment is high. Young people cannot find jobs. The victims look for a
scapegoat on which to vent their anger. They choose the foreigner, the
minority, the helpless. That’s how a failed painter named Adolf Hitler became a
historic figure. For politicians without vision or values, this is the easiest
way to success and prominence. It is also the most despicable.

LAST
WEEK, we saw a spectacle that would have shaken our grandparents to the core. Some
300 black people, many of them barefoot in the biting cold of an exceptionally
severe winter, were walking dozens of kilometers on a central road. They were
refugees who had managed to flee from Sudan and Eritrea, to walk all the way
through Egypt and the Sinai and had crossed the border into Israel. There are
now about 60,000 such African refugees in Israel. Thousands of them are crowded
in the most run-down slums of Tel Aviv and other cities, causing deep
resentment among the locals. This has proved a fertile breeding ground for
racism.

Looking
for a solution to the problem, the government built a large prison in the
middle of the desolate Negev desert, unbearably hot in summer and unbearably
cold in winter. Thousands of black refugees have been crowded there without
trial for three years. Israeli human rights associations applied to the Supreme
Court, and the imprisonment of the refugees was declared unconstitutional. The
government thought again and decided to circumvent the decision. Not far from
the forbidden prison a new prison was built, and the refugees were put there
for one year each. No, not a prison. Something called “Open Live-in Facility”.
We are good at naming things. We call that “verbal laundry”.

This
“open” desert prison is closed during the night, but inmates are free during
the day. However, it is far from anywhere. The inmates must register three
times during daytime – thus making it impossible to go anywhere, not to mention
finding work. It is from this “open” prison that the valiant 300 have walked
out and marched all the way to Jerusalem, some 150 kilometers, in order to
demonstrate in front of the Knesset. It took them three days. They were
accompanied by a few Israeli human rights activists, mostly female. In front of
the Knesset they were brutally attacked by specially trained riot police. Each
demonstrator was surrounded by half a dozen bullies and violently thrown into a
bus, which brought them to the old non-open prison.

A
hundred memories float into our minds. Of Jews being hounded from country to
country. Of the mighty USA rejecting
Jewish refugees on a German ship, fleeing from Nazi persecution. And later
exterminated in the death camps. Of the Swiss pushing back Jews escaping from
the concentration camps who had made it to their border.

The
Bible commands us to treat the stranger in our midst as we would want to be
treated ourselves. “Also, thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the
heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt!” (Exodus
23:9) Amen! http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/ [Abridged]

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About Me

I am not an academic. I have been a commercial beekeeper in New Zealand for most of my working life, except for four years in detention as a conscientious objector during WW2. Those years were particularly formative for me. I have retained my horror of war and the suffering still being caused by armed conflict and violence in so many places. My convictions have been nurtured by my Methodist church connection, though my pacifism has been deplored by some good people.

Expect no slick answers here; I am still a searcher myself. How can a just and peaceful society develop from this chaos, and what are the obstacles in the way?

Most of the articles posted here are from other sources. I look for writers, wherever they can be found, who can throw light on what is happening in our world. If you would like to learn a little more about myself, please read this biographical interview series conducted by my granddaughter, Kyla.